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Report: More SWIFT banks robbed

The bank transactions network recently targeted in an $81 million heist at Bangladesh’s central bank has notified its members that new attacks have taken place, Reuters is reporting.

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Reuters reviewed a letter sent by SWIFT that encourages its member banks to take security more seriously. The letter is said to reference newly discovered attacks since June, but it does not mention which banks were attacked or how much was taken.

Bangladesh Bank is the best-known victim of the SWIFT hacker’s spree, whose publicly announced victims include banks from the Philippines and New Zealand. The Bangladeshi robbery is notable not only for its ambitious targeted haul — the hackers attempted to steal nearly $1 billion, before coming away with around $100 million — but also because it involved the New York Federal Reserve.

In the SWIFT robberies, a hacker gained access to the network through a poorly secured bank and requested the transfer of money from a second bank. The New York Fed was the second bank in the Bangladeshi scheme.

The Fed's involvement has drawn interest to the security shortfalls of the SWIFT network by American policymakers and law enforcement ranging from the Senate Homeland Security Committee to the FBI.